Hunger is an important, ever-changing human trait. It doesn’t always refer to the hunger for food, but can also mimic the craving for a certain aspect. Hunger, in the context of food, can be an emotionally overpowering feeling, and in extreme cases, cause a person to go to great lengths to quench their feelings of it. Hunger, in the context of the of craving of a certain aspect, is therefore not so different. When one hungers for a certain aspect of life and ultimately is unable to obtain it, their hunger continues to grow, causing the person to undertake rash measures to obtain what they hunger for. Although this is not necessarily a negative aspect, as hunger can work to motivate, and drive a person to achieve an overall goal, a growing unnoticed …show more content…
Amir and Ishmael’s childhood are not so different, as most of it is spent trying to achieve what they hunger for: Amir hungers for Baba’s love and Ishmael hungers for survival. Early on in Amir’s childhood he performs several actions to try and win Baba but is ultimately unsuccessful. After each unsuccessful try, his actions and words become increasingly cruel as he becomes more desperate. For example, after Baba finishes his orphanage, Amir states, “I wished they’d all die along with their parents” (Hosseini 19). The comment made by Amir is cruel and unusual, for it is a very inhuman remark. The reader can only assume that his hunger for Baba’s love is slowly building inside of him, influencing him to progressively speak viler words as his hunger grows. Similarly, to Amir, Ishmael is also influenced to undertake evil actions as he hungers for survival; His actions and words become progressively harsher as he struggles to survive. This growing hunger eventually causes Ishmael and his friends to commit robbery by “Rush[ing] on [a] boy at the same time… [and] tak[ing] [his] corn from him” (Beah 30). The idea of stealing is clearly wrong in Ishmael’s mind as he comments “I felt guilty about it for a few minutes” (Beah 31), …show more content…
In an alley on the winter of December 1975, Amir watches and fails to intervene as Hassan is brutally raped by Assef, claiming “[he] ran because [he is] a coward” (Hosseini 82). Afterword’s, Amir is haunted by guilt and avoids Hassan at all costs. Instead of revealing to someone about Hassan’s situation, he decides to keep it a secret, thus indicating he is able to suppress his guilt as he rather hide than face his fears. As Amir continues to hide from his guilt, his hunger suddenly changes, as all he hungers for now is to be away from Hassan. Now, not only has his hunger for Baba’s love consumed him, but his hunger to rid Hassan of his life has as well. Similarly, Ishmael also develops another form of hunger as he is forced to join the army. At first, Ishmael is unsure of pulling the trigger and participating in the war as he still hungers for survival and knows that his chance of being killed is high. However, Ishmael eventually turns into a killing machine as he consumed by the hunger for revenge. Ishmael is manipulated into thinking that rebel fighters killed his family, and being consumed by both his hunger for survival and his hunger for revenge, “[he shoots as many as [he] could, but [does] not feel and better” (Beah 122). Amir is the same as Ishmael, in the sense that Amir’s hunger for
As a child, Ishmael Beah seemed like he was playful, curious, and adventurous. He had a family that loved him, and he had friends that supported him. Before the war, Ishmael had a childhood that was similar to most of the children in the United States. Unfortunately, the love and support Ishmael grew accustom to quickly vanished. His childhood and his innocence abruptly ended when he was forced to grow up due to the Sierra Leone Civil War. In 1991, Ishmael thought about survival rather than trivial things. Where was he going to go? What was he going to eat? Was he going to make it out of the war alive? The former questions were the thoughts that occupied Ishmaels mind. Despite his efforts, Ishmael became an unwilling participant in the war. At the age of thirteen, he became a
...ircumstances as he did, believe that revenge is not good and it keeps on going if no one stops the process. Overall, Ishmael eventually learned that revenge does not solve anything and seeking revenge just results in a longer war sustained by the counterproductive concept of vengeance. Additionally, Ishmael learned that by constantly thinking about his culpability, he was just bringing more harm to himself and in the process was unable to create any progress in his own life. Ishmael eventually realized that merely reflecting on his actions did not do anything and to fix and prevent the problems he faced, he would have to take initiative to reach out to the people who could help. By utilizing the idea of forgiveness, Ishmael learned that he could let go of the huge mountain of stress that was bringing him down and prevented him from overcoming the effects of the war.
It is hard to remain innocent during a time of war. Ishmael was an innocent 12 year old boy when the war broke out and the RUF took over his village. He was chased and shot at by the RUF. As a young boy he had to endure seeing people gunned down in front of him and murdered in the most gruesome ways as illustrated by the author when he said, “I had seen heads cut off by machetes, smashed by cement bricks, and rivers filled with so much blood that the water ceased flowing.”
Ishmael was taken from the wild and held captive in a zoo, a circus, and a gazebo. During his time in various types of captivity, Ishmael was able to develop a sense of self and a better understanding of the world around him. Ishmael states that the narrator and those who share the same culture are “captives of a civilizational system that more or less compels you to go on destroying the world in order live” (Quinn, 15). He goes to explain that releasing humanity from captivity is crucial for survival, but humans are unable to see the bars of the cage. Using the cage as a metaphor, Quinn is referring to human culture and how they do not see the harm it’s causing. As the novel progresses, it elaborates on how culture came about and why certain people inherit certain cultures. Ishmael refers to a story as the explanation of the relationship between humans, the world and the gods. He defines to enact is to live as if the story is a reality. Ishmael suggest that humans are captives of story, comparing them to the people of Nazi Germany who were held captive by Hitler’s
Ishmael kills people without it being a big problem or deal. He was forced and threatened. If not then he would be killed. First, he was terrified to see people being killed. In the book, Ishmael quotes “My hand began trembling uncontrollably…” This shows that Ishmael is being aware of his surroundings and of himself. This is important because it shows how Ishmael feels before he and his
During the war, there were two prevalent groups. These were the army and the rebels, both of which offered Ishmael a questionable future. As we know, Ishmael ended up joining the army. About his experience in the army, Ishmael says “I had my gun now, and as the corporal always said “This gun is your source of power in these times.It will protect you and provide you all you need, if you know how to use it well.”” (p.124). This type of thinking is in short, self-destructive to Ishmael. It would mean that he would either end up dead during the war, or if he was to survive, it would be very unlikely for him to be rehabilitated because he had been so reliant on his gun during the war. In addition to this, it would leave Ishmael in a precarious state when the war ended if he had not been rehabilitated, since the only thing he knew to do for years was to kill. However, since he was able to be rehabilitated, he was able to conform to society once more. This, unfortunately, could have been prompted once again near the end of the book when history repeats itself when the AFRC took over Sierra Leone. “The entire nation crumbled into a state of lawlessness. I hated what was happening. I couldn’t return to my previous live.”. Once again, war comes knocking on Ishmael’s front door, and this time around Ishmael knows what war is like and what he is going to experience again. Ishmael was
Ishmael starts his journey with a will to escape and survive the civil war of Sierra Leone in order to reunite with his mom, dad, and younger siblings, who fled their home when his village was attacked by rebels. Having only his older brother, who he escaped with, and a few friends by his side Ishmael is scared, but hopeful. When the brothers are captured by rebels, Ishmael’s belief in survival is small, as indicated by his fallible survival tactics when he “could hear the gunshots coming closer…[and] began to crawl farther into the bushes” (Beah 35). Ishmael wants to survive, but has little faith that he can. He is attempting to survive by hiding wherever he can- even where the rebels can easily find him. After escaping, Ishmael runs into a villager from his home tells him news on the whereabouts of his family. His optimism is high when the villager, Gasemu, tells Ishmael, “Your parents and brothers wil...
While Amir is a Sunni, his childhood friend Hassan is Shi’a, an inferior division of Islam. Simultaneously, Amir and Hassan belong to different ethnic groups-Amir is Pashtun while Hassan is Hazara. During his childhood, Amir would constantly mock Hassan’s illiteracy and poke fun at him. But, the pivotal demonstration of pressure from his surroundings that makes Amir commit his own act of cruelty is when he watches Assef rape Hassan for refusing to give him the kite that Hassan caught for Amir. To this, Amir describes the look of Hassan’s face to “a look I had seen before. It was the look of the lamb” (76). Throughout his upbringing, Amir constantly believed that his father blamed him for killing his mother in childbirth. To Amir, Hassan’s rape is a sacrifice that Hassan has to pay the price, the lamb to kill, in order to win his father over. To justify his refusal to intervene, Amir reminds himself that “[Hassan] was just a Hazara, wasn’t he?” (77). Amir’s surroundings cause him to have a negative outlook on people that his society deem lower. Amir knows he is morally wrong for not helping Hassan, but his need for his father’s love overpowers his friendship. Adding to his pressures, Amir believes that Baba prefers Hassan over him, a belief that further drives him to be cruel to Hassan. As a result, Amir’s motivation for validation and love from his father
Most people who Ishmael came in contact with and himself, had a conflict between trust and survival. This conflict became an effect of the war in which many people suffered because they chose to live over a possible death. Beah retells his traumatic experience that gives countless situations where survival is picked over trust. In a world without war trust and survival can be
Ishmael’s search for revenge ended when he was taken out of the front lines of the war by
The book is based on actual events and is expressed through a personal point of view. Ishmael wrote a memoir that tells the story of a young boy who is torn from his peaceful life, and then forced into a frightening world of drugs and slavery. In writing about his experiences, he has made the decision to present his experiences in a particular way by missing out details and recounting others. This along with the language used and the order, in which the events are disclosed, all serve to create a particular interpretation and to guide the reader to respond in a particular way.
While beginning to absorb the idea of war, the first grisly sights began to induce a natural fear while he is wandering around in the warzone. Ishmael first acknowledges this after viewing the escapees from his hometown, Mogbwemo, as “The image of that woman and her baby plagued [his] mind” (14) during his return to Mattru Jong. These ghastly sights are a large factor throughout Ishmael’s ordeal, during his time in combat and coming back to haunt him during rehab. At some points, he would simply stop progressing, as the fear and sadness threaten to overwhelm him at various points in his journey. Even though he lives with this fear for quite a while, he still goes off happily to become a child solider, killing rebel soldiers without sadness and plenty of satisfaction.
...ys, they are seized by soldiers and taken to a village engrossed by the military fighting back at the rebels. The fellow children soldiers became Ishmael’s only family at the time, and each of them were supplemented with a white pill, “The corporal said it will boost your energy” says a young soldier. (116) Little did Ishmael and the others know that the tablet was an illicit drug given to them to fight their fatigue and anxiety for a short term to better them in combat with the rebels. Beah unknowingly alters into a blood-craving animal, who kills with numbness and no emotion. “I was not afraid of these lifeless bodies. I despised them and kicked them to flip them.” (119) Ishmael now relies and is addicted to drugs to get through his day-to-day life, including smoking marijuana, and constantly snorting “brown brown” (121) which is a mixture of gunpowder and cocaine.
While Baba attempts to live his life according to the Afghan saying, “Life goes on, unmindful of beginning, end.crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis [nomads]” (Hosseini 356), Amir strays from this traditional perspective. Baba chose to continue his life unmindful of his past, while Amir, eventually decides to confront him. Although both Baba and Amir have acted immorally, the choices they make find redemption affect the success of their individual attempts. In the novel, Amir’s quest for atonement is more effective than Baba’s because he acts virtuously, while his father, acts selfishly. Ultimately, Amir is the more successful of the two because, in opposition to Baba, he seeks holistic atonement and is willing to make sacrifices to achieve redemption.
Hunger is a term that is often defined as the physical feeling for the need to eat. However, the Hunger Artist in Kafka's A Hunger Artist places a different, more complex meaning to this word, making the Hunger Artist's name rather ironic. The hunger of the Hunger Artist is not for food. As described at the end of the essay, the Hunger Artist states that he was in fact never hungry, he just never found anything that he liked. So then, what does this man's hunger truly mean? What drives the Hunger Artist to fast for so long, if he is truly not hungry? The Hunger Artist salivates not for the food which he is teased with, nor does he even sneak food when he alone. The Hunger Artist has a hunger for fame, reputation, and honor. This hunger seems to create in the mind of the Artist, a powerfully controlling dream schema. These dreams drive the Artist to unavoidable failure and alienation, which ultimately uncovers the sad truth about the artist. The truth is that the Artist was never an artist; he was a fraudulent outcast who fought to the last moment for fame, which ultimately became a thing of the past.